We were also incredibly lucky to have found a wedding coordinator who was just as excited about our “not-quite-traditional” choices as we were. Arney at Pineapple Productions was in step with us through our planning process. She was especially helpful to us, as we were planning from California. She became our “woman on the ground”, handling all the details so we could focus on planning our ceremony. (I strongly encourage anyone planning their wedding to hire a coordinator – even just a “Day-Of” coordinator. It was a great help and really took the edge off of the logistics planning and details)

Adorable hand-made popcorn cookies as their favors!

Friends helped Angie & Paul in a TON of the aspects of their wedding, including making the popcorn cookies!

Friends helped Paul decorate Glen Echo’s Bumper Car pavilion and Cuddle Up pavilion the morning of our wedding. A friend made my earrings. Friends performed our ceremony music. A friend baked and packaged popcorn-shaped cookies for everyone. Our DJ was a friend. Two of Paul’s aunts put together all the items for our Persian ceremony. And we had friends and family offer to stick around after the reception to help us take down decorations and make sure nothing was forgotten.

I love the way the brightly colored paper lanterns pop in these reception shots!

An old bumper car pavilion. Enough said!

Click inside for the rest of Part 2 of Angie & Paul’s offbeat, DC wedding at Glen Echo Park!

Angie shares more on their second ceremony!

Our ceremony was in two parts. Paul is half Iranian, so we also had a Persian wedding ceremony. Again, we found ways to make this our own, and involve more family and friends. It was actually quite a hit with all our guests because they could participate in sprinkling sugar over us, or collecting the coins that were tossed at us.

What an AWESOME shot. Getting to see the entire reception area from Angie & Paul’s point of view! I love this!

Not a big dancer? Try this for a wedding first-dance alternative … a first carousel ride!

We had a “first carousel ride” with our guests instead of a first dance. Our amazing photographers, Joe and Kayte (http://www.thehappycoupleonline.com/), set up a photo booth – which our friends and family really had fun with!

Angie & Paul’s rings are INSANELY alternative and different (are you surprised??) I love them! Plus they served Popcorn as a light-night snack at the reception, so this ring shot in popcorn makes perfect sense!

We chose to have family-style long tables instead of over-sized round ones. We served mini-cupcakes and mini-fruit pies instead of cake. We served popcorn as a late-night snack.

Some final advice from Angie:

Decide what’s important to you and don’t spend too much time worrying about the rest. Things like fresh flowers and table centerpieces didn’t matter to us, so we didn’t bother with them. No one missed them, and everything still looked beautiful. Instead, we focused on the things we were excited about – brightly colored lanterns, delicious vegetarian food, our ceremonies, the carousel, and the photo booth.

We were also very happy that we’d rented a bus to get all of our visiting guests to and from the park. They were able to relax and enjoy the day without have to worry about navigating DC-area traffic. And we were able to relax and not worry about anyone getting lost!

Congratulations Paul & Angie, and thank you for letting me share your amazing, offbeat DC wedding. We could all use a little more of your LA flare here in the DC metro area’s wedding world! A special thanks to the very-talented photographers, Joe & Katye of The Happy Couple, for letting us share their amazing images!

Vendors:

(We were more than happy with all our vendors. We would recommend any and all of them!)